---
title: SMS character replacements
description: SMS character replacements
---
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# SMS character replacements
## A reference for the special characters Mobiz automatically converts to standard equivalents in your messages — and what each one becomes.
When you paste text from Word, a web page, or a design tool, it often carries "fancy" versions of everyday characters — curly quotes, en dashes, fullwidth letters, decorative asterisks, and invisible spacing characters. To keep your messages rendering reliably across all handsets and to avoid unexpectedly pushing a message into a more expensive character encoding, Mobiz automatically converts these to their standard equivalents before sending.
You don't need to do anything for this to happen — it's automatic. This article is simply a reference for what gets replaced with what.
**In this article:**
1. [Quotation marks and apostrophes](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#quotation-marks-and-apostrophes)
2. [Dashes and hyphens](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#dashes-and-hyphens)
3. [Slashes and fractions](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#slashes-and-fractions)
4. [Brackets and parentheses](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#brackets-and-parentheses)
5. [Punctuation](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#punctuation)
6. [Symbols and operators](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#symbols-and-operators)
7. [Letters and digits](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#letters-and-digits)
8. [Spaces and invisible characters](https://help.getmobiz.com/sms-character-replacements#spaces-and-invisible-characters)
### Quotation marks and apostrophes
All decorative, angled, and fullwidth quotation marks are converted to plain straight quotes.
**Converted to a straight double quote (`"`):** left and right double quotation marks (" "), double low and high-reversed quotation marks („ ‟), left- and right-pointing double angle quotes (« »), double prime and double-apostrophe modifier letters (ʺ ˮ), the heavy comma ornaments (❝ ❞), the reversed and double prime quotation marks (〝 〞), and the fullwidth quotation mark.
**Converted to a straight single quote or apostrophe (`'`):** left and right single quotation marks (' '), the single high-reversed and single low quotation marks (‛ ‚), acute and grave accents (´ \`) and their modifier-letter forms (ˊ ˋ), the prime, turned-comma, reversed-comma, apostrophe, and vertical-line modifier letters (ʹ ʻ ʽ ʼ ˈ), the heavy single comma ornaments (❛ ❜), the fullwidth apostrophe, and several combining and vertical-form comma marks.
### Dashes and hyphens
Every dash-like character is converted to a plain hyphen (`-`). This includes the em dash (—), en dash (–), horizontal bar (―), the true hyphen (‐), the small and fullwidth hyphen-minus, the box-drawing scan lines, and — worth noting — the bullet (•) and hyphen bullet (⁃).
### Slashes and fractions
**Converted to a forward slash (`/`):** the division sign (÷), fraction slash (⁄), division slash (∕), big solidus (⧸), fullwidth solidus, and the combining solidus overlays.
**Converted to a backslash (`\`):** the reverse solidus operator (⧵), big reverse solidus (⧹), small and fullwidth reverse solidus, and the combining reverse solidus overlay.
**Fractions** are spelled out: ¼ becomes `1/4`, ½ becomes `1/2`, and ¾ becomes `3/4`.
### Brackets and parentheses
Ornamental, flattened, small, fullwidth, and white (outlined) bracket forms are all converted to their standard ASCII versions:
- Parentheses (`(` and `)`) — the medium, flattened, small, fullwidth, mathematical flattened, and white parenthesis forms
- Curly brackets (`{` and `}`) — the ornament, small, and fullwidth forms
- Square brackets (`[` and `]`) — the fullwidth forms
### Punctuation
Small, fullwidth, ideographic, and presentation-form punctuation is converted to the standard character:
- Period (`.`) — small, fullwidth, ideographic, and halfwidth ideographic full stops
- Comma (`,`) — small, fullwidth, ideographic, halfwidth, and combining-below comma forms, plus the single low quotation mark
- Colon (`:`) and semicolon (`;`) — the modifier-letter, small, fullwidth, and presentation forms
- Exclamation mark (`!`) — the retroflex click (ǃ), small, fullwidth, and presentation forms
- Question mark (`?`) — small, fullwidth, and presentation forms
- The double exclamation mark (‼) becomes `!!`
- The horizontal ellipsis (…) becomes three dots (`...`)
### Symbols and operators
Small and fullwidth symbol forms — and a large collection of decorative asterisks — are normalised to their standard equivalents: `@`, `#`, `$`, `%`, `&`, `+`, `^`, `~`, `_`, `|`, `<`, `>`, `=`, and `*`.
The asterisk group is the largest: every star, teardrop-spoked, balloon-spoked, and open-centre ornament, along with the asterisk operator and small and fullwidth forms, is converted to a plain `*`.
### Letters and digits
Some fonts and tools substitute stylised letterforms that look normal but aren't standard characters. These are converted back to plain ASCII:
- **Fullwidth letters** (Ａ–Ｚ) and **small-capital letters** (ᴀ, ʙ, ᴄ, ...) are converted to their normal uppercase letters (A–Z).
- **Fullwidth digits** (０–９) are converted to normal digits (0–9).
### Spaces and invisible characters
A wide range of Unicode whitespace — non-break space, en/em spaces, thin and hair spaces, the zero-width space, ideographic space, and similar — is normalised, along with invisible control characters such as null, tab, escape, and the device-control codes. These are removed or replaced with a standard space so they don't create hidden formatting issues in your message.
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